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Welcome to the Hastings Park Foundation website

We hope you find it informative, helpful and enlightening. As an organization, we seek to support projects that educate and further the cause of human rights in Canada. In that regard, we have funded or sponsored such varied projects as plays, independent schools, books and conferences.

CBC Radio Ideas, 2-part internment documentary

narrated by Terry Watada

Japanese Canadians share stories of life in internment camps

Click to listen to:
Wasteland Gardens, Part 1: The Japanese Internment in Canada
aired: Tuesday, February 22, 2022
In 1942 Ottawa yielded to pressure from British Columbia to remove all Canadians of Japanese descent from the pacific coast. They lost their homes, possessions, wealth, and communities. It was not until 1949 that they were accepted back into B.C. Three generations of Japanese Canadians tell the story of these years and their aftermath.

Click to listen to:
Wasteland Gardens, Part 2: The Dispersal Years
aired: Wednesday, February 23, 2022
After years of internment, Japanese Canadians who had lost everything they owned — their belongings either sold off to non-Japanese neighbours for pennies or confiscated and sold by the Canadian government to pay for the internment — were told they had no choice but to disperse. The options? Go "east of the Rockies" or go "back" to Japan -- a country many had never seen. Some went on to work as sharecroppers on Alberta farms while others settled in distant provinces including Ontario. In part two of Wasteland Gardens, we hear from a generation imprisoned and dispersed and how they tried to make sense of being Canadian.

Books

The Four Sufferings

THE FOUR SUFFERINGS
(Mawenzi House Publishers, Toronto Dec. 2020)

Shiku hakku in Japanese means to endure, an expression that originates in Buddhism. This collection links Terry Watada’s past and present while acknowledging the fundamental suffering of human existence—in birth, aging, illness, and death—and the suffering endured in daily living—common frustrations, desire, separation. But at the same time it celebrates love, and in the end seeks an enlightened state of acceptance. Rise above life’s hardships and rejoice in the state of life is the overall theme of this collection.


Mysterious Dreams

MYSTERIOUS DREAMS OF THE DEAD
(Anvil Press, Vancouver Dec. 2020)

At the heart of Mysterious Dreams of the Dead is the spiritual search for a father who died in a plane crash north of Lake Superior when his son was fifteen. Mike Shintani decides in his early thirties to address the curious circumstances surrounding his father’s death; the senior Shintani’s body was never found, and wolves circled the crash site as if guarding the area.

The impetus for Mike’s search for truth is a diary he found in the basement of his home. It was obviously his father’s, but it was written in Japanese. Mike never knew his father could write Japanese. He himself could neither read nor write the language. He was fortunate enough to enlist the help of Naoko Ito, a Japanese grad student at the University of Toronto. It turned out, the book was a dream diary, filled with poetry, descriptions of the surreal, and the story of a love affair with a woman named Chiemi. Chiemi is at the centre of the elder Shintani’s dreams, and Naoko, after some time, seemingly disappears into thin air. Both appear as ghosts in dreams.

Another great mystery of Mike’s life is the behaviour of one of his best friends, Boku Sugiura, who decides one day to rob a bank, in the name of his grandfather and redress for Japanese Canadians.

The two strains of the novel come together in Moose Jaw. Mike discovers the truth about his father’s life and Boku’s uncle (Daniel Sugiura from Terry’s previous novel, The Three Pleasures), a protestor in the Moose Jaw stand-off. Through elements of the Japanese ghost story (“kwaidan”), magic realism, and Buddhist myth, secrets are revealed and explored. Mysterious Dreams of the Dead is an imaginative examination of the effects of exile, internment, and dispersal on the third-generation of Japanese Canadians (the “Sansei”).



Please explore the website making note of our mandate, published titles and activities, past and present. And if you feel it is appropriate, donate to the foundation for a tax donation receipt. Be assured that your donation will be used to support similar worthy causes now and in the future.

Terry Watada, President
Hastings Park Foundation


DONATION CONTACT INFORMATION:
Hastings Park Foundation
6 Wildwood Crescent
Toronto, ON M4L 2K7
Email


In Loving Memory of Yoshio Hyodo

Kenneth Grisewood $50.00, David and Sandra Ham $50.00, Elizabeth Hyodo $20.00, Terez Hyodo $50.00, Mitsy Ito $50.00, Brenda and David Kumagai $120.00, Thomas Kumagai $20.00, Ruth and Gene Ogino $200.00, David Shimizu $100.00, Ted Shimizu $100.00, Frances Yoshida $50.00, Katherine Shimizu $100.00 (from Kathy, Janice and David Shimizu and families), Greater Toronto NAJC $2000.00


The Hastings Park Foundation was founded in 1987, as a charitable institution and has funded many educational and arts projects. HPF has been providing funding for book publications and other worthwhile projects relating to Japanese Canadian History and human rights. To date, we have provided a total of $3,000.00 grant to the University of British Columbia Faculty of Arts, ACAM (Asian Canadian & Asian Migration) program.